


Parentheses

by if_youhaveghosts



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Hinata smokes cigarettes at one point, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Pre-Despair, Slice of Life, Smut, all pertaining to Tsumiki of course, but don't worry Hinata comforts her, but the smut is brief and it isn't the main point of the fic, cuteness, happy ending (well i guess for now as it's pre-despair), hinamiki, they live in suite-style dorms where they have roommates because that's just how i envisioned this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:36:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3655635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/if_youhaveghosts/pseuds/if_youhaveghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Against a backdrop of past abuse, gossiping Ultimates, and an (unknown) impending doom, Hinata Hajime and Tsumiki Mikan do their best to create a safe space for one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parentheses

_“Hey, it’s the Super High School Level Hope.”_

_“Is that even a talent?”_

_“Wasn’t he from the Reserve Department?”_

_“And he’s with that crazy girl, the one who cries all throughout class all the time.”_

_“She’s probably the only Ultimate Student he could get to talk to him.”_

_“I wouldn’t go near her. She’ll probably stab me with a needle or strangle me with bandages or something.”_

♡♡♡

She is, medically, a mess. Bruises and small incisions line a slender arm and leg, bandages braided around and around the afflicted areas. She has a beauty mark under her left eye, but that’s a mark Hajime admires, unlike her many injuries that worry him sick. Long, uneven hair grows, boundless, from her head, cut up at all angles like her timid and mishandled soul. And inside her beautiful shell is fear, and all manner of nervous disorders.

Peace envelops her in her sleep, and the blankets envelop Hajime and the object of his musing. The early sun is light and forms a halo upon her head, and a yellow bracelet on a small wrist suspended on the pillow.

Her mouth is slightly open, as if to speak one of her many daily concerns; but, halt, there is peace. Peace in sleep. The ions from the air purifier in the room are intoxicating, permeating a drugged drowsiness that cradles Hajime under many layers of air particles, folding around him like the descending depths of the ocean.

One of his lazy eyes flickers open and closed, revealing the soft sleepy face beside him at each blink. He wants to look at her, but the fight for consciousness is just too much. Easier to surrender. Easier to sleep.

But he must wach her, and so he continues to shutter sandy eyes, catching glimpses of plum hair and pink lips. He must watch over her, to make sure nothing harmful comes near--no cruel words, or fingertips of foes, no pebbles in the road that could cause a stumble or a drop.

In his bed Mikan is safe.

A slumberous Hajime watches over her, so that she may not fall in dreams.

♡♡♡

_“Look, it’s Reserve Department struggling to open his locker again.”_

_“Honestly, can he do anything? In gym, he was last in sprints today, too.”_

_“Nobody likes him. Not even the Reserve Department kids will talk to him anymore.”_

_“He should just drop out and save himself the embarrassment.”_

_“Do you think his parents paid a lot of money to the school to get him into our class?”_

_“Nah, he just ‘hoped’ really hard and then, poof! The Tooth Fairy gave him a title.”_

_“It’s that eccentric Kirigiri-sensei, letting him play along with us for laughs.”_

_“Maybe Kirigiri-sensei has big plans for him though, as Super High School Level Hope.”_

_“Yeah, right. What are they gonna do, operate on his brain?”_

♡♡♡

She tries to count ceiling tiles in class, suppressing the avalanche of anxiety-ridden thoughts that seek to overwhelm and claim her.

One, two. One, two, three.

Four.

Four, five. Four, five, six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

She can’t breathe.

“Mikan?”

The nurse shivers, and looks over her petite shoulder to where Hajime is studying her with uneasy eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“I--I’m h-having a panic attack,” she squeaks.

“Do you need to leave the room?” he whispers under his breath, surveying the class to determine the parameters of the situation.

The student body is half asleep, and the teacher is looking more at his notes than he does at the class. Saionji Hiyoko has her head on her desk. Komaeda Nagito is doodling, swirling spirals of purple ink off of the paper. Owari Akane eats small pieces of candy while her legs rest atop her desk, the athlete leaning back languidly in her chair.

“N-N-No,” Mikan stutters, and Hajime can see tears in the corners of her eyes.

“Take deep breaths,” he says, watching her whimper and fight back waves of fear, unfounded and debilitating.

“W-Will y-you hold m-my hand?” she asks timidly, as, almost in slow-motion, she reaches shaking fingers behind her from the seat in front of him.

His own hand drops to his knee, and fingers interlace with hers.

The sounds of the classroom are white noise around them, and together they weather the lecture and snickering of classmates until the bell.

♡♡♡

_“She fell again?”_

_“What a joke.”_

_“In the cafeteria, with her legs spread open right in front of everyone.”_

_“Clumsy slut…”_

♡♡♡

He’s not sure at what point of their relationship that it starts, but she doesn’t sleep in her own dorm anymore.

“Are you okay, Mikan?”

The boy is surprised when he opens the door to his room and finds his girlfriend already asleep on his bed early in the evening, uniform twisted around her and a trickle of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth.

She snores.

“Mikan?”

He slings his bookbag over the desk chair and turns on the light. He watches her chest rise and fall slowly, rumpled clothes and bedsheets casting shadows all over the curves of her body. Her hair is covering her face, and he bends over and gently tucks a strand behind her ear.

“Mikan?”

Hajime sits on the side of the bed and gently shakes her shoulder.

“Mikan? Mikan? Mikan?”

It takes a moment before she responds, yawning and blinking furiously against the artificial light of the desk lamp.

“H-Hajime-kun…?” She stutters and rubs her eyes.

 _My headache is gone_ , she notes silently, taking in the dark corners of the room before looking back to Hajime’s face.

“H-Hello…”

He releases a breath of relief, and he can’t help the smile that finds its way onto his lips.

“How’d you get in here, Sleeping Beauty?”

“K-Komaeda-kun l-l-let me in…” Mikan struggles, voice caught in a yawn. She sits up. “Luckily, he was here w-when I showed up…”

Suddenly she tenses.

“I--I hope that’s o-okay! I’m sorry…” she says as she covers her eyes with her hands.

Hajime bites his lip. He’s been in a relationship with Mikan for several months at this point, but he’s still not sure what to do when she becomes over-apologetic and nonsensical.

“N-No, there’s no need to apologize. It’s fine for you to be here. I just… get worried,” he decides, looking her over. “Did you go to all of your classes?”

The apples of her cheeks assume a fitting red color, and she casts her glance downwards, uneven fringe covering her eyes.

“N-No… I s-skipped the last t-two…”

He immediately puts a hand to her forehead, feeling for excess warmth. It’s there, and he moves his hand to the side of her face, stroking her cheek.

“You’re not feeling well, huh?”

“N-N-No…” she chokes out. “H-How h-horrible for a n-nurse to get s-sick… how c-can I possibly t-take c-care of a-anyone else like this…”

“You can’t right now,” says Hajime with a shrug.

Her eyes widen in horror, but he wraps an arm around her.

“And that’s okay. You can’t be at a hundred percent all the time; it’s just not possible. Even for someone who always does their best, like you do. You just need to rest now. It’s okay to take a break.”

Mikan doesn’t agree with him. In fact, everything in her screams at her about how worthless she is and what a failure she’s become. Tears leak out and stain her face as Hajime raises her chin to look into her eyes.

“So, do you have the key for your room on you? I’ll go get you a pair of pajamas. You should probably start leaving some here, since you sleep here every night.”

“I-It’s in my bag…”

Hajime locates the key and opens up the door while Mikan shudders on the bed, sniffling.

“Hinata-kunnn!” Nagito’s voice drawls from the kitchen area of the dorm suite. The pleasant aroma of baked sweets swirls through the air and enters the bedroom. “Tsumiki-sannn! I made cookies!”

Hajime puts his palm to his forehead and laughs.

“There’s cookies,” he says, turning back to Mikan from the opened door.

She laughs through her tears.

♡♡♡

 

_“And they’re a couple, how sad is that?”_

_“Imagine their kids? That’d be a fucked up family.”_

_“They probably won’t even live long enough to get married. Losers like that will just fade into obscurity once high school’s over.”_

♡♡♡

Light snow dusts the ground outside of Hope’s Peak Academy where Hinata Hajime’s fingers are cold inside his coat pockets, feeling around for some stray paper leftover from lunch. He wears cut-off gloves and a heavy jacket, for winter is upon him, and the youth is well into a despairing semester, dark and bottomless as the early nightfall. He takes out a crumpled handful of money and shoves it into Fuyuhiko’s palm, the latter stuffing it into his jacket’s breast pocket.

“Hey, you got a light?” Hajime asks as the blonde Kuzuryuu and his posse of starstruck Ultimates turn to walk away. “I, uh… I lost mine.”

Fuyuhiko laughs, shaking his head as he flips open a zippo and passes it to Hajime.

“You know, you’re a piece of work, kid.”

Hajime lights his cigarette and inhales.

“So’re you,” comes the garbled reply out of the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t fuck with me, bastard,” Fuyuhiko says, practicing a menacing expression that doesn’t quite suit his boyish face. The taller boy flicks the zippo closed and places it back in its owner’s palm. “You’re not cool enough to fuck with me, Hinata.”

“You can fuck with me though?” Hajime asks brazenly, sarcastic and uncaring of with whom he is speaking.

“Tch, yeah,” says Fuyuhiko as he turns his back, “I guess you’re not that bad. Maybe worth a few laughs.”

Hajime flashes a loony grin. It’s almost as if he’s conversing with a friend, and he does have some sort of friendship with the yakuza, he figures, even if he only bums cigarettes from him every other day. They do shoot the shit during the exchange, and it’s more positive interaction than Hajime typically experiences for most of the day where he is often ignored if not bullied.

Though as Hajime watches Fuyuhiko walk away his smile drops. He remembers that he is alone, and he kicks a rock as he spins about on his heel and moves over to sit on the courtyard steps, taking another puff of his cigarette.

_Stupid fucking Hope’s Peak._

Beneath the dulled bulbs of the courtyard’s many lights, Hajime wonders why he even bothers to come here.

He had thought the bullshit would’ve been over once the Steering Committee gave him a title and assigned him a homeroom with the other Super High School Levels, but since then it had only gotten worse. Not only did his former Reserve Department classmates resent him for the ‘opportunity’ he received to become the ‘Super High School Level Hope,’ whatever the fuck **_that_** was, but the other Ultimate Students refused to accept him as one of their own as well.

Even his roommate Komaeda Nagito would casually ‘forget’ about Hajime’s lack of talent, making passive aggressive comments whenever Hajime is struggling with a homework assignment or brings others over to the dorm and forces Hajime to painfully endure introductions.

_Fucking Komaeda. Like being a ‘Lucky Student’ is something special._

Yet even worse, that excruciating weirdo knew it. Nagito knew that luck could easily be dismissed as a fluke, and he would **put down his own talent**. Which made Hajime sick. Because who was he kidding? He’d kill even for Ultimate Luck. At least that was something more tangible than ‘Ultimate Hope,’ or whatever the creepy guys in the suits had said at that meeting about what he would become after they started the experiments--which was just another thing to worry about.

 _And that’s why I’m here_ , Hajime thinks, watching the smoke drift away from his lips and disintegrate.

_Because regardless of all of it, I admire this fucking school._

_And I wish I could make something out of my pathetic self._

The others make it look so easy, unaware of how special they are just because they were born blessed with talent. It’s nothing to them, just who they are, no different than the physical traits they were born with; they are exceptional human beings who possess talent as Hajime possesses brown hair and green eyes.

Their carefree nature is painful to behold for someone who admires Hope’s Peak, who even disgustingly admires talent.

He inhales and exhales, watching the smoke twirl indifferently in the cold air.

He fucking hates this school, he decides, and everybody in it.

“H-Hajime-kun?”

The timid voice comes from just behind him, and instantly his heart drops into his stomach.

_Oh, shit--_

"H-Hajime-kun!? What's... w-what's that in your hand!?"

He stays silent for a long moment while the winter wind blows some ashes away, and then lets the words come out just as carelessly.

“‘t’s a cigarette,” he grunts, and he can only imagine the despair that pierces into his girlfriend’s heart due both to his actions and the dismissiveness of his tone.

She steps out in front of him, the one person in this godforsaken school he **_doesn’t_** hate, and seeing her beautiful face filled with sadness brings him unimaginable shame.

“T-T-That’s… w-why…? T-That’s so d-dangerous, Hajime-kun…”

He spits out a ‘so what?’ with harshness he immediately regrets. She gasps.

"I don't really need a health lesson," he says, pointedly looking away from her as he inhales the smoke once again.

His pointy hair shivers in the wind, and he pulls up the furred hood on his coat, further hiding from her. He doesn’t need to look to know she is crying.

"Mikan... don't cry..." he says, but the words are merely a whisper and she doesn’t hear.

“I--I know… w-what I say d-doesn’t r-really have any value… b-but Hajime-kun… s-smoking is deliberately p-poisoning your body…”

He hates to hear her degrade herself, but in his weakness he does nothing about it. In fact, unable to stop himself, he makes it worse. He takes another puff. He can’t look at her, and fixates on some nearby bushes.

“Y-You’re not listening… o-of c-course y-you won’t listen… but I l-love Hajime-kun enough that I w-won’t stop!”

Hajime feels his heart flutter at the word ‘love,’--they have said it, once, whispered it in the darkness, maybe, never with such courage--and he tries his hardest to mentally berate himself for how mean he is being to her, but her speech keeps him from retreating into himself. All he can hear is her voice, and he relents to her clumsy yet impassioned words about the lifelong health problems caused by smoking and the laundry list of chemicals he has been willingly taking into his body by indulging in the habit.

“...y-you can get l-lung c-cancer, throat cancer, gum cancer, cardio-v-vascular disease, gum disease…”

He puts the cigarette out while she talks and flicks it away with disdain, burying his hands in his pockets and scowling at the ground.

“...a-and on top of that it turns your s-skin y-yellow, a-and y-your teeth, too…”

“It’s out, you know.”

"O-Oh, I'm sorry! Y-You--You could've put it out on me."

Hajime hates it even more when she reverts to her own bad habit of asking for abuse, and he knows he triggered her. It makes him nauseous.

"You know I wouldn't--" he grunts, "I'd **_never_** do that to you, Mikan."

“Ehehehe…”

She giggles and wipes her eyes and before he knows it she is sitting next to him despite the fact that the steps are speckled in snow.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it from the bottom of his heart, and he hopes she knows that. “I’m sorry I was harsh just now. I didn’t mean it.”

She nuzzles his shoulder and ponders silently for a moment.

“H-Hajime-kun… d-do y-y-you think I’ll be a good doctor?”

Her arms are weaved through one of his, her body pressed against his side and shivering in the cold.

To anyone the question would be laughable. How could a Super High School Level Nurse not think they’d become a good--really, if not the best of the best--doctor upon graduating school?

But Hajime doesn’t laugh.

“Of course you will, Mikan,” he mumbles, removing a hand from his pocket and clasping it over one of hers. “You’re the most caring person I know.”

Mikan smiles.

Hajime does a double take, his eyes flickering back to her face after having turned to grumpily study his shoes.

She honors him with the most genuine smile she has ever produced, untainted by tears or regret.

“Thank-you, Hajime-kun.”

His cheeks turn redder in the cold.

“Sure.”

♡♡♡

_“Literally, have you ever seen a girl with a pig face so ugly?”_

_“Her hair is hideous.”_

_“Why is it all ratty like that? Does she use a comb? Did she cut it herself?”_

_“If she did, that’s really pathetic.”_

♡♡♡

He is never so happy as when she is in his arms, and she is never so pretty to him as when flushed with embarrassment at his affections.

His hands run down her back, fingertips weaving a trail of shivers even as they move over her shirt, the fabric paper thin beneath the heat of their bodies. She is crushed against him, arms feebly draped around his neck, legs on either side of his as she sits on top of him on the bed. His hands pause at her waist, squeezing her hips and pulling her down.

Kissing him makes her dizzy. Doubts and insecurities that normally haunt her mind are blown up and around in a whirlwind and silenced by the soft contact. He gently runs his tongue along her bottom lip, always asking politely before entering her mouth, which she parts for him with a sigh. Her mind feels faint and her heart is full of a sweet and entirely foreign bliss that sends tingling sensations throughout her body.

“Mikan,” he whispers her own name to her as they break apart, resting their foreheads together and taking a moment to breathe.

She licks her lips, blinking shyly at him. He stares back at her, taking in all of her disheveled beauty: naturally guarded violet eyes, choppy hair that frames her pale face, so fragile in the quiet darkness of the room.

Hajime notices that she shivers, and he wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her shoulder, inhaling the sweet citrus scent that hangs about her and torments him when it lingers on his pillows and on the hoodies that she borrows when it’s cold. He gently places a few kisses on her neck and she gasps in response. Her trembling fingertips stroke the back of his neck and brush through his hair, which makes him just crazy, he can’t stop himself from taking a sharp breath and clinging tighter to her.

“K-Kiss me m-more, H-Hajime…” her voice cracks over the words, but it doesn’t matter because by the time she finishes speaking his mouth is pressed to hers again, the kiss already heavier and deeper and maybe more forceful than he intends, but she is everything to him, particularly in this moment, and he is overly eager.

He spins her around, laying her down on the bed and leaning over her, thumb stroking her cheek while his tongue probes her mouth. His other hand runs down her side, brushing fingertips over her bare waist where the skin is exposed between her rumpled shirt and skirt.

“C-Can I…?” he whispers against her face as he plays with a loose button on her shirt, hand hovering just above her stomach and wanting to scale higher.

Mikan nods to him and he begins unbuttoning her blouse with shaky fingers, watching as she is revealed to him in a manner of heart-pounding seconds until he finally removes the shirt all together and she lay beneath him in a white lace bra, waiting timidly for his touch.

A light red flushes his cheeks even though it isn’t the first time he is seeing her top half unclothed, and it comes as a shock to him when he hears her clear her throat and speak up, _y-you c-c-can take the b-bottom half off, too..._

Hajime does as he’s told, leaving her in only plain white undergarments and bandages and smiling weakly as she tugs at his tie.

“Do you want me to take off my clothes too?”

All she has to do is nod and he shrugs off the signature tie she had been playing with, and his shirt shortly after, and finally his pants. He’s left kneeling on the bed before her in only his boxers, biting his lip while his eyes drink her in.

“You’re really… really beautiful, Mikan,” he says.

“M-More k-kisses…” she stammers, cheeks pink, and he presses himself to her again, lips capturing hers and not letting go.

Their tongues brush together, run over one another’s lips, taste the inner corners of each other’s mouths. Hajme traces her shoulder with his fingertips, earning a shiver from her soft and vulnerable body, and he sighs into her mouth as he lets his fingers travel further down, gliding over her chest and moving to encircle a hardening nipple. His hand cups her breast and squeezes.

She whimpers and squirms, and leans forward for him so that he can reach behind her back and unclasp her bra, which he succeeds in with minimal fumbling, much to his astonishment. She watches him curiously as he helps her remove the unnecessary piece of elastic and lace, leaving her torso completely bare to him.

“Mikan… is this okay?”

She nods to him, feebly--which he chalks up to nervousness--and immediately he moves his lips to her chest, kissing each of her breasts in turn and grazing his teeth over her nipples. He lowers his mouth, kissing underneath her breasts, then down her stomach, and over to the hem of her panties, and then over the panties themselves, tongue lapping against the fabric.

His heart is beating fast now. He hooks his fingers under the edges of her panties and pulls them down, tossing them onto the ground and into oblivion. He kisses her right on her sex, and puts pressure on her clit with his tongue, tasting the wetness that has accumulated there. A hand snakes between her legs, one finger slipping inside of her with ease, and another following quickly upon recognition that it would be possible to join.

He thrusts his fingers in and out of her, eyes closed as his tongue still works on her clit, drawing small circles around it with the very tip.

It’s then he hears her crying, and all at once he goes rigid, and stops.

His heart jumps.

He removes his dripping fingers from her and pulls back, slowly, lifting his eyes to her face, which is tear-stained and glistening even in the dark.

“...Mikan? A-Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

Her bottom lip trembles like she wants to say something, but all that comes out are more tears.

Hajime crawls up the bed and lays down beside her, pulling her into his arms and cupping her cheek. He tries to wipe away some of the tears, though his efforts are futile, as they fall harder than raindrops on pavement.

“Mikan… what’s wrong…? I’m worried… are you okay?”

“P-P-P-Please,” she sputters, “p-p-please don’t h-h-h-hate me, H-H-Hajime-kun…”

“Mikan…” he tries again to wipe away the tears as he calls her name, and finds that it’s still no use. “What’s wrong? I don’t hate you… I could never hate you…”

“D-Don’t h-hate me for crying, d-don’t h-hate me f-for stopping you,” she hiccups, “p-please, c-continue if you w-wish, y-you can do anything y-you w-want to m-m-me, with me…”

“Mikan… hey, no, it’s not like that… I want you to be enjoying it,” he says, and he’s both confused and saddened by the way she’s talking.

He doesn’t know what to do. This is not how he imagined his first time having sex with his girlfriend.

“I would never do anything against your will.”

The statement only sets her off worse.

“I-It’s fine… e-everybody does it… y-you could t-try sticking vegetables i-inside of me, o-or any kind of o-object you want--”

Hajime blanches, suddenly feeling ill as realization is striking him harder than a metal bat to the back of the head.

“--a-and if it f-fits y-you can tell me what a g-good girl I am, a-and i-if it doesn’t you can just shove harder, o-or try s-something else, o-or p-punish me for it--”

“Stop.”

“--w-what do you m-mean, H-Hajime-kun? T-That’s w-what c-comes next, r-right--”

“Stop.”

There are tears still streaming down Mikan’s face as she chokes out these horrific suggestions, recounting, as Hajime has figured out, things that have happened to her in the past, that have probably happened many times. Anger is burning in his chest at the newfound knowledge that absolute monsters have done such things to her, and white heat travels from his gut to his forehead, heralding the onslaught of a migraine.

“--I-I--” she hiccups, “I r-really d-don’t m-mind, H-Hajime-kun, w-why’d you st--”

“Stop.”

She is delirious, both flushed and crying, and hot and cold, and it’s like the temperature in the room is shifting rapidly from ten degrees to a hundred and back again. She is confused. Why isn’t Hajime still playing with her? Or hitting her for disobeying? Why is he telling her to… stop?

Stop?

Go away?

Does he want her to get dressed and leave?

Does he not want to have her?

“Hajime-kun… w-what…?”

Hajime puts his face in his hand, rubbing hard at his eyes. His forehead stings. His heart aches. He wants to wrap Mikan up in the blankets on his bed and fold her into his arms as if in a cocoon, turned away from the world, where she will be safe.

He doesn’t know how to say what he wants to say, or know what exactly it is that he does want to say, so he stumbles and trips over sickened feelings and tries to clear the toxic air.

“Mikan, I am so sorry. I am so fucking sorry that assholes have done… that… to you. I wish… I wish I could fucking fight them all and never let them touch you again. You don’t fucking deserve that. You don’t deserve any of that.”

He does pull her close, and he does wrap the blankets tightly around her, and he does cocoon her in his arms like the fragile creature that she is, and he does cradle the back of her head with his hand and hold her against his chest, eyes turned away from the world. And she is safe like this.

He can feel her tears, wet and warm on his skin, but he contents to stroke her hair and grits his teeth out the blackened window, staring at nothing particular, just at the world that has been so cruel to the girl he loves.

“I’m not mad at you, Mikan, or upset, or anything. I’m mad at the people who have hurt you. I know you’ve let them do it, like you’ve let people draw on you, and cut your hair, and burn you, but please, **_please_** , promise me you’ll never let anyone do those kinds of things to you again.”

“H-Hajime-kun…” she whines, voice muffled as her lips are pressed up against his collarbone.

She doesn’t know what she’s feeling, and it’s still something like delirium, a dizzying mix of confusion and sadness and just a little bit of that so very foreign **love** that’s growing in her heart ever so slowly with the encouragement of Hajime’s words.

“Promise me, Mikan. I can’t take it.”

“I--I p-promise, I promise…”

“Good, good…” says Hajime as he cups her face with his hands and looks into her eyes, which are wide and wet and full of apprehension, “...I love you, Mikan. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you any more. And that includes me. We don’t have to do anything sexual until you’re ready. I want you to enjoy it, and I want to make you happy. I want you to feel good.”

His words are confusing to her. She’s stuck in this place in her mind, pinned and trapped by panes of glass that all reflect different images to her; visions of what she thinks is right and what she thinks is wrong, what others have told her is right and what they have told her is wrong, what has been painful and what has been healing, what has brought her joy and what has made her scared, and all of these things are mirrored and merging and reflecting back at her and she doesn’t know what to think.

So she tries to focus on his words.

_I love you, Mikan._

And on his actions.

How he hasn’t hurt her in the ways she has anticipated. How instead he has wrapped her up tight and warm and protected her from herself.

“I--I love you too, Hajime-kun…”

Hajime smiles.

“Do you want to get dressed?”

Her cheeks turn faintly pink, and she wiggles in his grasp as she loosens the blankets he has bundled her in so that she may encase him in them as well.

“U-Um, i-if it’s o-okay with you… w-we can just cuddle like this…”

The tears have started to dry on her face, and Mikan succeeds in getting the blankets equally distributed around Hajime with his help. Their mostly nude bodies are pressed together, and they hold each other tightly, becoming intoxicated by the warmth that seems to circulate through both their veins as if they shared the same blood.

“Sure… this is nice,” he says, resting his cheek on her forehead.

“Hehe, heh…” she giggles, “I want to stay close to you, Hajime-kun.”

“Then that’s how we’ll stay. We can sleep like this all night.”

**He will protect her from everything, he affirms to himself in his heart, even from her dreams.**

**Author's Note:**

> thankyou to the lovely James for being my beta. x3  
> title taken from this lovely song that so~o fits these two cuties: [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt8jq_YSyxk)  
> also hinamiki forever~ *runs away*
> 
> ps; i also run a hinamiki network/skype group which you can apply for here:  
> <http://hina-miki.tumblr.com/>  
> it's horribly un-updated because of just being busy with life but if this generates interest (please comment and let me know if you're joining!) i can try to get back on that~  
> would love to breathe life into this beautiful ship in any way possible  
> xo C


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